Absconding Mallya renews offer to sell assets worth Rs13,900 cr
27 Jun 2018
Days after the Enforcement Directorate moved a special court to declare him a fugitive economic offender, Vijay Mallya, promoter of the failed Kingfisher Airlines Ltd, said on Tuesday that he had requested the Karnataka High Court on 22 June to allow his firms to sell assets worth Rs13,900 crore “under judicial supervision” and “repay creditors including the public sector banks” that have declared him a wilful defaulter.
The former liquor baron also released a two-year-old letter he had written to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and said he was "making every effort" to settle his dues but he had been made a "poster boy" of bank default and a “lightning rod” for public anger (See: Mallya renews offer to settle with banks, says he is being hounded).
In a statement from the UK, where he has been living for the past two years, Mallya said if agencies like the Central Bureau of Investigation or Enforcement Directorate objected to his appeal, it would demonstrate "an agenda against me beyond recovery of dues".
"I respectfully say that I have made and continue to make every effort, in good faith to settle with the public sector banks. If politically motivated extraneous factors interfere, there is nothing that I can do," said the 62-year-old Mallya.
He also claimed that the bulk of his dues were on account of interest, which kept rising either because his properties were seized or because he was denied permission to sell assets.
Following Mallya’s court application, minister of state for external affairs M J Akbar said, “If Mallya wanted to pay to the banks, I think he had … many, many years in which he could have done so.” Akbar was responding to a question on Tuesday about Mallya’s claims that he had tried to settle the dues and was a victim.
According to government data as on 15 May, Kingfisher Airlines owed Rs9,990 crore to a consortium of 17 public sector banks. Mallya’s offer to repay the banks and other creditors comes three days after the ED filed an application before a special court in Mumbai seeking to declare him a ‘fugitive economic offender’ and immediately confiscate his assets worth Rs12,500 crore under the recently promulgated Fugitive Economic Offenders Ordinance, 2018.
Also, a London court is likely to deliver its verdict in the extradition case against Mallya by the Indian government on 31 July.
Mallya in his application to the Karnataka High Court has offered to sell fixed assets attached by the ED of Rs1,699.45 crore, attached shares worth Rs7,609 crore, fixed deposits lying with various debt recovery tribunals and ED of about Rs215 crore, sale proceeds of Kingfisher Villa of about Rs73 crore, Rs1,473 crore deposited with the Karnataka High Court and shares worth Rs2,888.14 crore of United Spirits Ltd, United Breweries Ltd and McDowell Holdings Ltd held by six Mallya-controlled firms.
These firms are Devi Investment, Mallya Pvt Ltd, Kamsco Industries, Gem Investment and Trading, Pharma Trading Company and Vittal Investments.